This study investigated the allelopathic activity of sixteen seaweed extracts using lettuce seed germination bioassay. The results of the preliminary investigation suggested that the methanol ...extracts of seven seaweeds demonstrated significant properties inhibitory to seed germination. In addition, chemical investigation of an active extract of the alleopathic Laurencia heteroclada Harvey led to the isolation of four known compounds as well as a new brominated nonaromatic isolaurene type sesquiterpene. The structural elucidation of pure compounds was carried out using spectroscopic methods and by comparison with literature. As seaweeds are highly abundant around Sri Lanka, they could be developed as an ecofriendly natural herbicide in their crude form.
Natural products such as terpenoidal compounds have been extremely tested against pathogenic bacteria. Researches are frequently carried out to find out new natural, semisynthetic and synthetic ...antibacterial agents due to problems of resistance. Thymoquinone derivative was obtained in our previous study and the current research is a continuation. The antibacterial activity of a monoterpenoid; thymoquinone derivative, 5-isopropyl-2-methyloxepine-1-one (1) has been evaluated for the first time by following the Agar cup bioassay method employed. The bacterial strains used in this study were Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis. Compound 1 showed moderate activity against Gram-positive organism; B. subtilis and good activity against Gram-negative species; E. coli with zones of inhibition (ZOI) 10.0 + or - 0.2 mm and 11.0 + or - 0.2 mm against E. coli and B. subtilis, respectively, and in comparison with antibiotic, imipenem. The zones of inhibition were calculated as the mean of the triplicate. The antibacterial activity of thymoquinone derivative 1 could be explained by the presence of unsaturated lactone.
In this paper, we examine the contribution of openness variables such as import, export, absorptive capacity and foreign-shared capital to Indonesian firms’ technical efficiency and total factor ...productivity (TFP) growth. We use the most recent firm-level panel data of 23 subsectors in the manufacturing industry over the period from 2008 to 2015. We employ time-varying stochastic production frontier to examine factors affecting technical efficiency and to decompose the components of TFP growth. The results reveal that export and absorptive capacity alone contribute to the efficiency improvement of the firms under study. To speak specifically of foreign firms, they contribute to improving efficiency if they interact with absorptive capacity and imported raw material intensity. We identify that, on an average, the manufacturing industry in Indonesia experienced positive TFP growth. However, among 23 subsectors, there are only few subsectors that benefitted from the openness variables. In 2014, 15 out of 23 subsectors experienced negative TFP growth. This implies that, in 2014, there were some macroeconomic issues regarding the contracted policy, for example, the subsidy removal and the basic electricity tariff.
JEL Classifications: C23, D24, F23, O14
Objectives:
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association of coffee consumption rate with serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D, non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, and total cholesterol ...to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio in females with vitamin D deficiency.
Methods:
This retrospective cross-sectional study was carried out by studying the records of 270 Jordanian females aged 18–65 years with varying degrees of vitamin D deficiency. Following completion of the questionnaire regarding their anthropometric characteristics and coffee consumption rate during the preceding 3 months, the participants were required to provide blood samples for analysis to measure 25-hydroxyvitamin D and lipid profile levels including non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and total cholesterol to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio.
Results:
The current study demonstrated that coffee consumption rate and vitamin D deficiency were significantly positively connected with the total cholesterol to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (p = .003) in women with vitamin D deficiency. In addition, vitamin D deficiency alone correlated positively with non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels and the total cholesterol to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (p = .010) and (p = .002), respectively.
Conclusion:
Higher coffee consumption rate among women with vitamin D deficiency significantly elevated total cholesterol to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio that may increase woman’s risk of hyperlipidemia.
One of the challenges of building complex and functional tissues and organs in tissue engineering is transporting nutrients and oxygen to the tissue. The use of oxygen-releasing materials is ...one solution to overcome this challenge. In this study, alginate (Alg) 4% (w/v) was used as the main material for the scaffold, and calcium peroxide (CPO) was used to release oxygen. CPO can react with water and finally release oxygen, which leads to the elimination of hypoxia and effective distribution of oxygen in the scaffold. Multiple tests, including the oxygen release profile, degradability, swelling, porosity, and SEM images, performed on the bulk of the material showed that increasing the percentage of CPO in the scaffold led to an increase in oxygen release, porosity, and degradation. All CPO-containing samples could maintain oxygen concentration in solution above 5 mg/L for 1 week. Increasing CPO concentration resulted in an increase in scaffold porosity from about 48% in the control sample (Alg100-CPO0), which contains no CPO, to about 83% in the alginate hydrogel with CPO:Alg (% by w/w) equal to 5% (Alg100-CPO5). Additionally, Young’s modulus of the two samples, Alg100-CPO1 CPO:Alg (% by w/w) equal to 1% and Alg100-CPO5, was about 58 ± 3 and 74 ± 5 kPa, respectively. Alg100-CPO5 showed low cell viability compared to other samples. Finally, Alg100-CPO1 was chosen as the optimum sample with excellent cell viability, oxygen release, and mechanical properties of the scaffold for further studies.
Graphical abstract
Abstract
Materials that can recover the function of lost or damaged parts, called self‐healing materials, have attracted attention due to their wide usage in different fields such as water refinery, ...coatings, robotics, and especially, biomedical applications. Depending on whether the self‐healing component is added to the polymer or is inherent to the polymeric matrix, the self‐healing properties of the polymeric materials can be classified into extrinsic and intrinsic self‐healing. Hydrogels are one of the most used polymers in self‐healing applications for various purposes, including tissue engineering, drug delivery, etc. Nanoparticles can endow some essential features to hydrogels, such as improving mechanical properties, more efficient healing ability, conductivity, and antibacterial and magnetic features. In the current study, various biomedical applications of self‐healing polymers using nanoparticles are discussed in detail, showing the impact of addition of nanoparticles. Perfect antibacterial properties with the addition of copper sulfide or silver nanoparticles were achieved. In addition, enhancing compression modulus up to three times and endowing conductivity to the hydrogel as the effect of carbon nanotube addition and better mechanical properties caused by graphene oxide and iron oxide nanoparticles were reported. These are just a few examples of the results achieved by adding nanoparticles to the self‐healing polymers described in this study.
KEY MESSAGE : Analysis of phenotypic data for 20 drought tolerance traits in 1–7 seasons at 1–5 locations together with genetic mapping data for two mapping populations provided 9 QTL clusters of ...which one present on CaLG04 has a high potential to enhance drought tolerance in chickpea improvement. Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is the second most important grain legume cultivated by resource poor farmers in the arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Drought is one of the major constraints leading up to 50 % production losses in chickpea. In order to dissect the complex nature of drought tolerance and to use genomics tools for enhancing yield of chickpea under drought conditions, two mapping populations—ICCRIL03 (ICC 4958 × ICC 1882) and ICCRIL04 (ICC 283 × ICC 8261) segregating for drought tolerance-related root traits were phenotyped for a total of 20 drought component traits in 1–7 seasons at 1–5 locations in India. Individual genetic maps comprising 241 loci and 168 loci for ICCRIL03 and ICCRIL04, respectively, and a consensus genetic map comprising 352 loci were constructed ( http://cmap.icrisat.ac.in/cmap/sm/cp/varshney/ ). Analysis of extensive genotypic and precise phenotypic data revealed 45 robust main-effect QTLs (M-QTLs) explaining up to 58.20 % phenotypic variation and 973 epistatic QTLs (E-QTLs) explaining up to 92.19 % phenotypic variation for several target traits. Nine QTL clusters containing QTLs for several drought tolerance traits have been identified that can be targeted for molecular breeding. Among these clusters, one cluster harboring 48 % robust M-QTLs for 12 traits and explaining about 58.20 % phenotypic variation present on CaLG04 has been referred as “QTL-hotspot”. This genomic region contains seven SSR markers (ICCM0249, NCPGR127, TAA170, NCPGR21, TR11, GA24 and STMS11). Introgression of this region into elite cultivars is expected to enhance drought tolerance in chickpea.
Although microorganisms are known to dominate Earth’s biospheres and drive biogeochemical cycling, little is known about the geographic distributions of microbial populations or the environmental ...factors that pattern those distributions. We used a global-level hierarchical sampling scheme to comprehensively characterize the evolutionary relationships and distributional limitations of the nitrogen-fixing bacterial symbionts of the crop chickpea, generating 1,027 draft whole-genome sequences at the level of bacterial populations, including 14 high-quality PacBio genomes from a phylogenetically representative subset. We find that diverse Mesorhizobium taxa perform symbiosis with chickpea and have largely overlapping global distributions. However, sampled locations cluster based on the phylogenetic diversity of Mesorhizobium populations, and diversity clusters correspond to edaphic and environmental factors, primarily soil type and latitude. Despite long-standing evolutionary divergence and geographic isolation, the diverse taxa observed to nodulate chickpea share a set of integrative conjugative elements (ICEs) that encode the major functions of the symbiosis. This symbiosis ICE takes 2 forms in the bacterial chromosome—tripartite and monopartite—with tripartite ICEs confined to a broadly distributed superspecies clade. The pairwise evolutionary relatedness of these elements is controlled as much by geographic distance as by the evolutionary relatedness of the background genome. In contrast, diversity in the broader gene content of Mesorhizobium genomes follows a tight linear relationship with core genome phylogenetic distance, with little detectable effect of geography. These results illustrate how geography and demography can operate differentially on the evolution of bacterial genomes and offer useful insights for the development of improved technologies for sustainable agriculture.
Gemfibrozil (GFZ) is a medication of the fibrate category with agonistic effects on peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor‐α (PPAR‐α) and is effective for hypertriglyceridemia and mixed ...dyslipidemia. This agent also has anti‐inflammatory and antioxidant properties. The current study investigated the effects of GFZ on hepatorenal damages in a D‐galactose (D‐gal)‐induced aging model. We used 28 male mice, which were equally and randomly divided into four groups as follows: normal, D‐gal (150 mg/kg/day; intraperitoneal i.p., for 6 weeks), GFZ (100 mg/kg/day GFZ, orally p.o. for 6 weeks), and the combined D‐gal + GFZ. Liver and kidney function indices were measured as serum creatinine, blood urine nitrogen, alanine aminotransferase, and aspartate aminotransferase. Oxidative stress in hepatic and renal tissue was evaluated through malondialdehyde, superoxide dismutase, and glutathione peroxidase levels. Finally, the liver and kidney tissues were assessed for histopathological lesions. The results showed that D‐gal‐induced aging leads to abnormalities in liver and kidney function indices. D‐gal also induced significant oxidative stress and histopathological lesions in these organs. GFZ improved function indices and oxidative stress compared to the D‐gal‐treated animals. Histological evaluations of the liver and kidney also confirmed these results. These data provide evidence for the potential therapeutic of GFZ in clinical practice for mitigating the hepatorenal damages of aging.
This study suggests a more accurate series-parallel hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) energy management control technique based on heuristic adaptive dynamic programming (HADP). This article provides a ...solution to the energy management problem of Electric Vehicle using the Stimulant Dependent Heuristic Adaptive Dynamic Programming (SDHADP) algorithm. The reinforced Q learning model along with the three-layer feed-forward neural network with backpropagation is detailed with the necessary diagrams and equations. The approach to connecting the battery of a BEV to a residential system is novel and innovative. The experimental results highlight the importance and effectiveness of the SDHADP algorithm using an electric vehicle. This is done with the help of a BV feed-forward neural network with back-propagation. In the model, which is in charge of controlling the system based on the training given by the BV network, Markov decision theory was adopted by scholars as a paradigm for posing and solving planning problems in the face of uncertainty and is in charge of the battery management system.The suggested technique uses online learning control methods to improve upon the efficiency of the traditional Q-learning method by more than 4.55% under the specified real-world driving circumstances. Keywords: electric vehicles; energy management system; SDHADP algorithm; machine learning; neural network
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